Papers by Andrew John Wit
International Journal of Architectural Computing
Proceedings of the 20th Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA)
Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 1]
The rapid emergence of computational design tools, advanced material systems and robotic fabricat... more The rapid emergence of computational design tools, advanced material systems and robotic fabrication within the disciplines of architecture and construction has granted designers immense freedom in form and assembly, while retaining pronounced control over output quality throughout the entirety of the design and fabrication process. Simultaneously, the complexity inherent within these tools and processes can lead to a loss of craft though the production of methodologies, forms and artifacts left with extremely recognizable residues from tooling processes utilized during their production. This paper investigates the fecund intersection of digital technologies and handcraft through core-less carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) winding as a means of creating a new typology of digital craft blurring the line between human and machine. Through the lens of an innovative wound CFRP shelter rolyPOLY completed during the winter of 2015, this paper will show the exigencies and affordances between the realms of digital and analog methodologies of CFRP winding on large-scale structures.
Proceedings of the 33th International Conference on Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) [Volume 2]
Computation, robotics and intelligent building/fabrication systems are finding themselves ever mo... more Computation, robotics and intelligent building/fabrication systems are finding themselves ever more prevalent within both practice and education. The assimilation of these new tools and methodologies within the pedagogy of architectural education continues to gain greater importance as we perceive their rapid evolution and integration within surrounding emergent fields. Through the model of an Inconvenient Studio, this paper examines the intersection between interdisciplinary collaboration, architectural robotics and computation as a means of gaining a broader understanding of how the architectural learning environment can be transformed into a self-organizing system for emergent solutions. The pedagogical prototype for an Inconvenient Studio was broadly focused on the topics of architectural robotics and responsive architectures interpreted through a range of robotic technologies and their manifestations such as biomorphic, mechanomorphic, polymorphic and amorphic robotics. Through a set of three "Memos" (Self-Organization, Autonomy, Sentience), this paper will describe how students created innovative technology-driven think tanks that produced design entrepreneurs.
CAADRIA proceedings
To examine CFRP's viability within architectural practice, this paper explores new possibilities ... more To examine CFRP's viability within architectural practice, this paper explores new possibilities and methodologies for the materials integration into the design and production processes. Through the lens of the /One Day House/ initiative and its recent subproject /cloudMAGNET/, this paper explores and evaluates new typologies of formwork and winding techniques for CFRP based structures derived from tensile modeling and CFD analysis. Through examinations in cored and sacrificial coreless winding, this paper outlines new formal, structural, adaptive and production possibilities afforded by the integration of CFRP into the architectural workflow.
This paper presents data from Cloud Magnet, a research and design project conducted in the summer... more This paper presents data from Cloud Magnet, a research and design project conducted in the summer 2017 within the cloud forest of the Monteverde Biological Reserve in Costa Rica. Cloud Magnet explores the co-dependencies between material, form, energy, and environment. Cloud forests have been rapidly disappearing due to climate change and deforestation. Rising global temperatures and deforestation cause a cloud-lifting effect, raising the cloud cover above the tree canopy and forest ecosystem that depend on constant moisture and humidity to support its life. The impetus for this project is to explore how design can contribute to the stabilization of the atmosphere and the restoration of the forest. In recognition of the mutual and inseparable presence of built and natural contexts, Cloud Magnet suggests that architects bear an ethical responsibility for the health of the environment. As such, priorities of environmental performance might be extended beyond energy efficiency to include aspirations of environmental remediation and ecological healing to reverse the harmful effects of human habitation on the world.
The paper delves into the unique affordances of robotic production in architecture and their grow... more The paper delves into the unique affordances of robotic production in architecture and their growing potential to reshape the discipline when paired with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Over the past decade, a range of robots have been engaged within architectural production processes including fabrication, assembly, construction and real time responsiveness to materials and situational variances. The paper emphasizes the differences between the two-decade old paradigm of digital fabrication and the emerging paradigm of what we have termed and defined as robotic production.
Blucher Design Proceedings, 2019
This paper describes a potential for the integration of micro-encapsulated phase change material ... more This paper describes a potential for the integration of micro-encapsulated phase change material (mircoPCM) into lightweight skins as a means of regulating internal climatic conditions of volumetric objects. Viewed through the lens of the recently completed series of quarter-scale cloudMAGNET prototypes tested in the cloud forests of Monteverde, Costa Rica, this research utilized a wound, flexible carbon fiber framework and a lightweight fabric skin coated with varying densities of microPCM. The prototypes were monitored using real-time collection of climate data throughout the testing. In this paper we will demonstrate how climatic variables such as temperature, humidity, and pressure can be passively manipulated by varying the form and energy storage properties of materials without the use of active mechanical systems. Produced to bring awareness to the rising cloud levels within the Monteverde cloud forest, this research is intended to explore the fundamental relationships of material, energy and form. Beyond these objectives, the paper will also illustrate how these methods can be more broadly applied to the development of thermal-regulating lightweight tensile structures. Such innovations could be utilized as a method for the reimagining the architectural design and production processes allowing for the emergence of new typologies of environmentally self-mediating architecture.
International Journal of Architectural Computing, 2018
Autonomy, agency, and indeterminacy indicate systemic abilities for goal setting and operational ... more Autonomy, agency, and indeterminacy indicate systemic abilities for goal setting and operational strategyconcepts closely associated not only with the performative aspects of architectural interventions but also with the nature of the techniques and tools that produce them. These terms might imply an enhanced relationship between architecture, its inhabitants, and its environment; a complex link between architecture, its production, and its tools; or a capacity of architecture to produce new conditions and grounds on which it could be engaged. This issue takes a closer look at artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in architecture. As such, the following prevalent themes are considered: Redefinition of autonomy Recent advances in AI have challenged definitions of autonomy, agency, and indeterminacy. Early pursuits of intelligence, often symbolic and rule based, failed to generalize outside a target domain, neither prompting new knowledge nor unexpected outcomes. Breakthroughs in machine and deep learning have produced computational tools capable of interpreting only structured data, bits, pixels, and vectors. These systems are capable of becoming incrementally more robust and autonomous over time as they gather more information reinforcing success and failure. DeepMind applied deep learning to pixelated neural representations of the game Atari, ultimately discovering strategies that had never been imagined by its creators. Advances in natural language processing have also enabled Google's virtual assistant to interact in real time with eerie human-like capability. Pervasiveness of the new technology In other territories, disciplines, and frontiers, AI advances are met with both excitement and trepidation. Their application threatens one of two polemics: augmentation or obsolescence. In analytical domains, where tasks are repeatable and deterministic, albeit "fuzzy," the narrative elicited is, "This will destroy that." The possibilities and ramifications for more creative, artistic, or even "human" disciplines-where outputs are not linear or preconceived but negotiated and synthesized-are more contested and unknown. The power and potential of such approaches lies in their lack of specificity. The contributions to this volume evidence a spectrum of novel design explorations and exploitations that illustrates the divergence and convergence of human, machine, and mixed agencies at the intersection with adaptivity, adjustable autonomy, and architecture. Cultural impact of the new technology Digital tools and techniques in machine learning and AI, as they infiltrate, workflows for design and production, suggest a new category of design where questions of autonomy, indeterminacy, or authorship come into
3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 2016
Abstract The manipulation of weaving as a traditional industrial process as a craft, and as a num... more Abstract The manipulation of weaving as a traditional industrial process as a craft, and as a numerically controlled robotic winding procedure, was examined and evaluated through the construction of an architectural scale monocoque shelter. This wound carbon fiber prototypical structure represents a production method for quick deployment, flexibility in form, and lightness of material. The implications of this case study and its future goals are to be explored in relation to the rapid evolution of robotic fabrication and architectural design while being tested through the traditional craft of hand winding as a direct translation of computational information. The methodology and means in which the results are assessed are presented in this study. What is a related and beneficial by-product is the investigation of uniform and continuous winding that fulfills the technical requirements of monocoque and span, while allowing for additive layers of artistry or optical effects (Fig. 1). The oft-converging fields...
Anais do XIX Congresso da Sociedade Ibero-americana de Gráfica Digital 2015, 2015
This paper examines the redefinition of public urban space through the evaluation and implementat... more This paper examines the redefinition of public urban space through the evaluation and implementation of a series of globally interconnected interactive & robotic kiosks. Through the utilization and deciphering of relevant urban data, "Public Sphere" creates a new tangible layer within the urban fabric accessed through local and global reactive interfaces that engage the "contemporary" urban dweller with a network of urban ecologies that had previously remained hidden or overlooked. Through a series of studies examining the relationship between "Users, Robot & Global Network", this paper outlines the processes and inquiries that inform the current location of this ongoing research.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2015
Within the discipline of architecture, the exploration and integration of robotics has recently b... more Within the discipline of architecture, the exploration and integration of robotics has recently become an area of rapid development and investment. But with the current majority of architectural robotics research focused primarily around the realms of digital fabrication and biologic form/material optimization, there are few examples of direct translation from human generated data to form and processes, particularly as it pertains to the human experience of, and the interaction with architectural artifacts. Through a series of three case studies each building upon the previous, this paper investigates how the interconnection of secondary, smaller data harvesting/translating robotic systems in collaboration with larger industrial systems can be integrated within the conceptual design workflow to allow for the creation of unique/interactive tools for the materialization of human interaction through design, robotic control, and fabrication.
Anais do XIX Congresso da Sociedade Ibero-americana de Gráfica Digital 2015, 2015
During the summer of 2014, a unique pedagogical prototype was initiated and tested through a shor... more During the summer of 2014, a unique pedagogical prototype was initiated and tested through a short five-week digital design build workshop lead by Professors Gernot Riether and Andrew John Wit at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Unlike the typical design studio typology where projects are initiated through a series of top down predetermined project frameworks, this studio allowed for projects to emerge through student's navigating an area of research in digital design and fabrication. The studio was supplied by nothing more than an entrepreneurial mindset, initial budget and the requirement that an architectural project would be realized at full-scale by the end of the semester. Over the course of the semester, students tested, stumbled and pressed through a series of follies and prototypes that resulted in the realization of the Underwood Pavilion. This paper explores a novel design pedagogy, through the lens of this Digital Design Build Studio.
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Papers by Andrew John Wit